Bethany's Rite (19 page)

“Oh, yeah, babydoll. Soon.”

She moaned, a pleading fuck-me-now moan she was too
desperate to try and muzzle.

He dragged his teeth over her neck. It wasn’t a gentle
gesture, scraping her skin sharply before he sucked in a loud breath and jerked
straight up. Denied the cocooning warmth he had wrapped her in, she pressed the
back of her thighs into firmer contact with his, inadvertently shoving her
swollen, slick pussy against his cock.

“Goddamn, woman,” Wyc ground out, “you drive me fucking
crazy.”

Her skin felt cold without his covering, but before she
could complain, his large hands were on her again, rubbing, kneading, forcing
her back into the pillows. And then he was pulling at her ass, separating her
cheeks. Every muscle down her back stiffened.

“Don’t tense up now,” he said, circling her anus over and
over with his lube-slick fingers. “You need to breathe. It will be easier if
you’re relaxed.”

“Easier?” Her voice squeaked.

“Deep breaths, Bethany. Put your head back on your arms and
concentrate on breathing.”

Bethany pressed her forehead into the crook of her elbow and
drew in a lungful of air. When he did no more than continue the gentle
circling, her heart slowed to as close to normal as possible in her
supercharged horny state. Until she felt something push into her asshole.

Her head snapped up, wrenching shoulders back. A big hand
splayed over the middle of her back, slowing pushing her down again.

“Calm down, it’s just the lube.” As if to prove his point,
he squeezed it into her.

She gasped as her ass filled with the cold, melted-jelly
substance that immediately started to heat. There wasn’t time for her to assimilate
the sensation before Wyc had withdrawn the little nozzle and was rubbing the
warming lotion over and inside her cunt again. Unable to hold still, she began
to roll her hips and press into his hand.

While one set of fingers returned to massaging her anus, the
other set played with her clit, flicking it, tapping it, tugging on it. Her
muscles were coiling tighter and tighter, readying for an explosion. She slid
her knees further apart and arched her back hard until her breasts were mashed
into the rug.

“Feeling good?” he murmured.

Her affirmative answer came out as a muffled mewl. She was
so close, she could see the match striking to light the truckload of fireworks
set to go off in her body.

A slight pinching sensation in her butt dampened the impending
display. It was quick—a brief stretching of her sphincter muscle before it
constricted again. Only there was definitely part of an object inside her now,
and her puckered hole gripped around something about the width of Wyc’s finger.
With even, small tugs and pushes on the object, he moved it up and down in her
ass, sending licks of fire straight to her cunt.

Combined with the lotion and his fingers working her clit,
her nerve endings immediately started to unravel. “What is that?” she rasped.

“Something that’s going to prepare you to take me up your
ass.” He pushed slightly harder and she felt that same muscle stretch, the
pinch a little more pronounced as a larger—bump?—was inserted inside her. With
the two fingers he slid into her cunt simultaneously, the pinch was overridden
by the novel pleasure of being twice filled and stretched.

Two fingers pulled out of her, then three fingers thrust in,
spreading and flexing against the inner walls of her vagina. Another, larger
bulge slid past her constricting muscle and her anus started to burn with the
stretch. She gasped, tried to take a deep breath, settled for quick pants.

“You’re doing great, babydoll.”

Bethany had never heard Wyc’s voice so ragged. So harsh with
want. The knowledge that she could bring this dangerous, indomitable, absolute
man
to a state of desperate need—for her, for what she could give him—sent a shiver
of utter satisfaction through her. She knew if she asked, he’d stop now. Even
as far as they’d come, he’d stop.

She didn’t want him to. Not just for him, but for her. He
had been right. She did crave him. Wanted him every way she could have him.

Forcing herself to relax, she pushed back against him,
offering.

Wyc cursed softly, shifted and then rammed his cock into her
cunt, grinding it in to the hilt. Bethany screamed, tried to claw her way
forward off the pillows. With one hard hand on her hip, he held her in place as
he started to drive into her with a slow, steady rhythm.

Several great gulping breaths later and Bethany still
hovered on the edge of madness. A sweet, enthralling madness that she reached
for with every fiber of her body.

The fire in the fireplace crackled and flamed like the fire
building in her lower body. Droplets of perspiration trickled down her back and
over her shoulders, doing nothing to cool the blaze raging through her. Wyc’s
cock was solid heat without the warming lotion. With it, each thrust scalded
ruthlessly. When he started twisting whatever the hell he had stuck up her
butt, her brain stopped trying to understand the battering of sensation and
simply gave over to the experience. Out of the depths of her soul came a long,
low keening of desperate supplication.

Whether he was reading her emotions or her body, Wyc
responded. He began to fuck her hard and fast. Her body gripped him, caressing
and milking him through each long thrust until the unrelenting pressure of her
approaching climax had every last nerve taut in excruciating expectation.
Gasping, trying to find an anchor in the violent sensual storm, she looked back
at Wyc and lost her breath at the sight.

She should be used to the power and virility that radiated
from this man intent on making her his. He was beautiful. Thick waves of ebony
silk for hair. Eyes, deep as the night outside the cabin and the color of
darkest sapphire. His nose, straight and perfect, above a mouth that belonged
on an angel but had the devil’s own talent. Shoulders, arms, torso and thighs
all delineated muscle and sinew. His body every inch stark planes and sharp
angles. Not a single soft edge anywhere to blunt the effect of his appearance.
Exertion and the cost of restraint had sweat glistening and running in rivulets
down his chest. His fingers dug into her hip. The look in his eyes slammed into
her with demand. She knew the moment he reached out and brushed her mind with
his. Suddenly, what was happening to her body was nothing compared to the
emotion he swamped her with. Then he twisted the plug in her ass, popped a
fourth and even larger knob into her restrictive channel and banged into her
cunt deep and hard, coming with a hoarse shout and scorching streams of cum.

It was the end of what her body could stand. She was filled
beyond what she had thought possible, burning with pleasure and caught in the
middle of an unbelievable climax of phenomenal force. She screamed. Writhed.
Twisted and thrashed under his hold until her body simply collapsed. With
muscles still trembling in aftershock as blackness crowded in, she slipped over
the brink into welcomed unconsciousness.

Breath bellowed in and out of Wyc’s lungs as he tried to
adjust from the mind-numbing crush of absolute nirvana to the glaring reality
of fucking a mate senseless.

“Bethany?” He pulled out of her, grimacing. The slide of his
sensitive dick out of her still-throbbing cunt bordered on pain.

She didn’t answer. Didn’t show any sign of having heard him.
Carefully, he removed the knobbed butt plug he had used and rolled her off the
pillows. She flopped with dead weight onto the rug.

“Bethany?” The idea had been to distract her from the
thought of leaving him, not to send her into a dead faint. He brushed her damp
hair off her face and cupped her cheek. Finally, her eyes fluttered open. For a
moment.

Just as quickly, they closed.

“Babydoll? Talk to me. How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she mumbled. “Cold.” Curling up in a ball, she
scooted toward him, seeking warmth.

Wyc smiled and grabbed a folded blanket from cubbyhole next
to the fireplace. Spreading it over them, he gathered her close.

He was exhausted. Elated. If someone had told him that
making love to his mate would be a remarkably different, breath-stealing
experience every time, he would have laughed in their face. Sex was good,
occasionally great, but it was only sex.

Until Bethany. She was amazing. Each time he reached for
her, it was like embarking on a journey to a new world. He knew her, but she
always surprised him. When had she looked back at him over her shoulder
tonight, her eyes glowing with demand and the same harsh need that was driving
him, she once again ripped the reins of control out of his hands and made it
possible for him only to ride with her through the storm. The lust that raged
through him met and matched by her own.

She sighed and shifted closer. He looked down at the vision
in his arms. Her head pillowed by his shoulder, her hair a dark cloud around
her pale face. The black sweep of her lashes created shadowed half moons
against the smooth skin of her cheeks. Her lips parted slightly on deep, even
breaths. When she had moved closer, she reached her arm across her breasts so
her hand could rest on his chest. A possessive gesture made in sleep that was
too telling for her to make when she was awake.

He had known the second she had given in to the craving
hunger she had for him. For what lie between them. She had made a choice
tonight and had offered her body in acknowledgment. Seeing it for what it was,
he had seized the opportunity. Using it to bind her another step irrevocably
closer to where she belonged. With him. To him.

They should be mated by now. Each day that passed without
the final rite being completed was like a fresh scourge on his soul. It burned
with chilling portent inside him for reasons he couldn’t explain. The threat of
Predators and traitors exacerbated the feeling, they didn’t instigate it. The
soul-deep fear that, for some reason, Bethany would ultimately refuse to claim
him as her mate. That once found, she’d be lost to him again.

Instinctively, he pulled her tightly against him until she
murmured a sleepy protest.

He would not let her go. He would not lose her. He would
not.

Something was tickling her ear. She scrunched her shoulder
up. Burrowed deeper into the warm body next to her. The tickling stopped.
Started again on her neck. She swatted at it with her hand. It brushed her
fingers.

“Bethany, wake up.” Wyc’s voice was rough with sleep.

“No.” Hers was rougher.

The tickling was back. Her cheek this time. She tried to
roll away. A strong arm wrapped around her back and held her in place.

“I want you to see something.”

“I saw it last night.”

He chuckled. A rather jarring sensation against her chest.
She squeezed her eyes shut harder until the skin gathered at the corners like a
child’s fold-up fan created out of a piece of art paper. If she ended up with
early crow’s feet, she was blaming Wyc.

“Not what I’m talking about.” He pressed his impressive
morning erection against her stomach. “Though we’ll get there. Now open your
eyes.”

“I’m sleeping, damn it.”

He tweaked her nipple.

She jolted. Cracked one eye open just enough to glare at
him. “You are seriously pissing me off. And,” she said with a sniff, “I don’t
even smell coffee.”

He bracketed her jaw with one hand and turned her head to
look over her shoulder.

Her other eye cracked open. The next second, they both flew
wide. She flopped over and propped herself up to a half sitting position.

The view through the living room windows was beyond
breathtaking. The cabin faced east, and the sun was just about to top the
mountains in the distance. From their position on the floor, the sky took up
all but the bottom fourth of the window, flooding the vista with the
extravagance of color that could only be experienced firsthand at Mother
Nature’s generous bequest.

Rich, deep cobalt bled into lighter, softer blues that were
little by little relinquishing their place to ever-increasing vibrant pinks
until a fuchsia, bright enough to be gaudy on any canvas but the heavens,
kissed the bottom of the horizon.

Bethany found herself holding her breath as fuchsia turned
electric orange, heralding a thin glowing line of searing yellow that
highlighted the uppermost peaks of the surrounding mountains. The brilliance
increased, intensified between the two tallest mountains, centered in the
panorama. Suddenly, golden rays engraved the sky in proclamation of the sun’s
arrival, and the drama of the previous act was outshined by the entrance of the
main attraction.

She turned back to Wyc, the exclamation of amazement dying
on her lips at the look in his eyes. He wasn’t watching the sunrise as she
expected. His penetrating gaze was zeroed in one hundred percent on her.

He took advantage of her lowered defenses and dived into her
emotions, still raw from yesterday’s constant struggle. She hadn’t been awake
long enough to fortify her mental barriers, and the breathtaking early morning
show left her wide open for his probing regard.

The touch of his mind to hers snapped her out of the moment
and she twisted away from him. Rattled at feeling so exposed—did she have to be
naked as well?—she gestured toward the window with one hand and grabbed her
shirt with the other.

“That was beautiful. Thank you.”

Wyc was silent behind her. His only response, the calloused
warmth of his palm sliding down her arm. The lingering intimacy of the moment
continued to settle around them despite her uneasiness with it.

“I haven’t seen a sunrise like that since I was twelve.
Maybe I was thirteen. It was at a summer camp,” she rambled, nervously tugging
the T-shirt on over her head. It would help matters if Wyc got dressed too.
Having his naked sexiness spread out beside her in all its aroused glory was
making it extremely difficult not to abandon her efforts at detachment and
simply throw herself on his body.